More On AIG And Congressional Stupidity

Pop quiz...name the mind-bogglingly obvious thing that is wrong with this:  AIG Bonuses Renew Call for Congress to Read Bills

The fine print in the stimulus bill authorizing the AIG bonuses, which was rushed through the U.S. Congress at lightning speed, has led to a renewed call for politicians to read legislation before they vote on it.

Uh...WHAT?!  You mean it's a good idea for Congress to read a bill before voting on it?  Really?  No way!

Here's the nutshell of the bill:

The Read the Bills Act is as simple to describe as it will be difficult for Babka and his allies to enact. A draft they've prepared says that each bill must be read aloud before a quorum in the Senate and House of Representatives; that each legislator voting "aye" must file an affidavit saying they're familiar with the contents; and that laws that don't meet these requirements can be challenged in court.

Boy, wouldn't this be a shocking departure from the unaccountable standard of operations in Congress nowadays?

This blindingly obvious idea that they should read the bill before voting on it is a brilliant example of how our Congress is far less equipped to run our country than most of us peons out here in the real world.  I think it was Bill Buckley who once said that he'd rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than by Congress, and this is why.  Normal people understand that it is completely irresponsible for Congress to vote without reading (never mind analyzing!), egregiously so in the case of these bills that cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars.  Apparently, Congress doesn't.  They can't even run a balanced budget, which most Americans somehow miraculously accomplish on a monthly basis.  They're incompetent idiots who are driving this country off a cliff while looking off in another direction.  The fact that someone is now pushing for legislation to force them to read before voting is as depressing as it is ridiculous.

Speaking of AIG, the company is now hemorrhaging people:

Jake DeSantis may have been the most publicly vocal departure at AIG after Congress and the media attacked his compensation, but he's not alone. Reuters reports that several high-ranking executives at AIG have given notice.  The insurance giant, 80% owned by the US at the moment, says it can get by for now, but more departures could cripple their ability to pay back taxpayers for the massive bailout:

Several more employees are leaving the controversial financial products unit that brought American International Group Inc to its knees last year, according to a person with knowledge of developments there.

The resignations are in addition to the "handful" of senior AIG Financial Products executives who have already given notice, said the person, who could not quantify the total number of departures.

To date, AIG said the situation at the financial products unit remains "manageable," despite the departures. But if too many employees quit, Chief Executive Edward Liddy has warned it could be disastrous for AIG and, ultimately, for U.S. taxpayers who are the insurer's majority owners.

Hot Air provides some good analysis:

Employers pay retention bonuses to keep employees in time-limited or unprofitable jobs.  Otherwise, as soon as a unit at a company hears that they will be shut down, the talent flies out the door, and the only people remaining are those who can't get jobs anywhere else — not exactly the best and brightest.  Most if not all of these employees agreed to work in the Financial Products division after the collapse, not before, and had nothing to do with the abuses that created it.  They went there to rescue their own retirement portfolios, heavily damaged by AIG, and for the retention bonuses that AIG offered them as compensation as part of an employment contract.  Some, like DeSantis, only had a $1 salary, getting paid only if he stuck around long enough.

If the public threatens the safety of their families, the Attorney General threatens to prosecute them, and Congress threatens to take the money away they got paid for not seeking employment elsewhere, why should they stay?  And here's an even better question: why should anyone take their place?   Would you work for $1 a year just so you could put your children in the gunsights of lunatics doing bus tours past your house and have the state's top prosecutor pledging to come after you with all the tools at his disposal?  The people leaving AIG are literally irreplaceable under these conditions, and we need the FP unit staffed with knowledgable people if we want to see even a fraction of our investment returned to us.

This is what mob hysteria produces, and we can thank Congress and our "shaking with outrage" President for fomenting it.  They've put people in danger who had little to do with the actual wrongdoing, and deliberately encouraged the drooling, mindless reaction around the nation.  They've probably kneecapped any possibility of getting our money back out of AIG.  I hope people enjoyed their outrage parties, because we just paid $150 billion for them.

And this is what the federal government wants to do with the entire financial industry.

There's my two cents.